Final Reflection.

As I was reading over my colleagues' blogs, I found many interesting ideas, but there was one that stuck out the most. Nicole's blog on Charlotte Smith's Sonnet 44 carries a different perspective of nature. The title of her blog - The Destructive Power of Nature - is very strong and stimulating. I agree with her in the sense that most people usually just talk/write about the "therapeutic, utilizing and life sustaining power of nature" and they don't realize that there is a negative side to nature as well. The idea of nature is for the most part always portrayed as something stunning, bewitching, and beautiful, but in reality, that's not always the case.

Looking over my previous blogs, I noticed that I mainly paid attention to the good side of nature, and tended to overpass the bad. Nicole pointed out that "the tidal waves have even destroyed the grave yard, and consequently,many of the remains of the bodies have been washed into the sea." In general, humans tend to associate the "destructive power of nature" with a separate force and may not realize how it's all connected. I admit to being one of those people. Before reading this blog, I knew that natural disasters are part of "nature," but I just didn't associate the two.
Nature is such a captivating, awe-striking phenomena and it can be so wild and destructive at the same time. The pictures that I posted are before and after shots of volcanic eruptions. Before, you see a majestic landscape, but after, there's not too much beauty left. It is amazing how much force nature has.

Kubla Khan

Samuel Coleridge uses an interesting rhyme scheme in his poem titled "Kubla Khan." Each of the stanzas has its own, distinctive rhyme scheme (even though they may appear to be similar). I believe the poem is written in iambic tetrameter which gives it an overall neat flow. It's actually a fun poem to recite because of the way it's written giving it a song-like tune.
Before even interpreting the poem, I saw a relationship with nature. It's chant like quality reminds me of the bird songs, like the many we have discussed throughout the semester. There was the nightingale, finch, linnet, etc. All of these birds sung their own unique song, just like the unique rhyme schemes in Coleridge's poem. When a bird sings, there is a certain, cheery sound that brings pleasure to the ears. The same occurs when reading this poem. You can even say that it's an exotic sound which can then correspond to the place he talks about in the poem. He describes Xanadu and the Alph with such rich imagery allowing the reader to portray it as this beautiful, exotic scene. I think the picture above does a great job revealing this image.

Frost At Midnight

What stood out to me in this poem is Coleridge's change in word usage. His words are like a roller coaster. They go from happy to sad, calm to angry, joy to sorrow, etc. What I found interesting is how this compares to nature. You can say that nature also has it's "mood swings" which can be identified through various ways; take the weather for example - one day it's warm and sunny, and the next it's cold and rainy. Coleridge starts the poem off with strong words such as "owlet's cry", "loud", and "hark"and then moves on to calm language like "solitude", "peacefully", "calm", "meditation", and "silentness." Those two groups of words are very different, opposites in fact. The same can be with nature; an ocean can be loud and rough, while the fields can be filled with peace and tranquility. What's neat about all this is that no matter what side nature is showing, the baby is so calm and at peace. Whether it be the "redbreast that sit and sing" or the "silent icicles shining to the quiet moon, " there is a sense of security that nature provides. The pictures illustrate nature in two different ways - the first shows nature in the winter time on a mountain while the other is during the spring near a creek. You can see how different these two images are, but they are both beautiful in their own ways.

Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree

What is unique about this poem is William Wordsworth's use of the long dash. It really made me think and what I came up with is that the lines that were left upon a seat in a yew-tree are the first seven lines in the poem. Wordsworth uses the long dash as a separation which divides the "lines...yew-tree" and his own poetry. I think that he might have come across those few lines and then in a way responded to them through the rest of the poem. What convinces me even more is that in the first seven lines, he is directly addressing a person (the traveler) telling him to stay and wait and then talking about the yew-tree. In the lines following the dash, the use of the word "he" is very common. Wordsworth may be trying to analyze and figure out "who he was that piled these stones..." and he talks about this with the "stranger" or "traveler." The Lake of Esthwaite also put a thought into my head. I looked for images of what this lake is like and it turns out it's a very beautiful part of nature. So maybe someone started writing some lines in this yew-tree, but never got around to finishing it because of the beauty nature. Perhaps nature was calling them, and so they went to explore the terrain rather than finishing up what they started writing - hence the long dash in the poem. It would be nice to know what Wordsworth really meant, but it sure makes you think and every time I look at it from a different angle, I come up with a different interpretation.

The Haunted Beach

Throughout the whole poem, Mary Robinson uses words with apostrophes. There is at least one in each stanza, and most stanzas have more than that. As a reader, my eyes were attracted to these words. The words in which Robinson uses the apostrophes are verbs, and they bring attention to them. Those words are significant because they are part of the descriptions. For example, the white foam in line 2 was "scatter'd"; lofty Barks were "shatter'd"; Sea Birds "hover'd"; the wave resistless "roll'd"; the green billows "play'd", and so on... There are just so many words like that within the poem and they especially emphasize the lines in the poems in which they are used. It's like they are haunting the reader, just like the ghost is haunting the fisherman. I also noticed that most of the time, Mary Robinson is using words with apostrophes when writing about nature (birds, waves, billows, etc). The apostrophe replaces certain letters, so it looks like letters are missing. Similarly, this is connected to nature because this beach she writes about is "lonely" and "deserted" so something is missing there too. The video below is basically a reading of the poem, but I think it does a good job of setting the spooky, supernatural mood.

The Haunted Beach

Sonnet IV------To The Moon

The moon, the "queen of the silver bow," is Charlotte Smith's topic in Sonnet IV To The Moon. The speaker of the poem, probably Charlotte Smith, is directly addressing the moon and speaking to it. This sonnet is filled with so much imagery and descriptions. Even with all the pessimistic and depressing language, Smith is able to portray the moon as a beautiful creation. The moon can be compared to "heaven"; it's a better place. There is so much bad on planet earth and life on this planet is not that wonderful, however on the moon, the wretched (those living in poverty, misery, or distress - according to the Oxford English Dictionary) "may have rest." Not only that, but the moon also allows the "sad children" to forget about all the sadness and grief in their lives. I wasn't sure what the word "benignant" meant, but it looks and sounds very cold and unpleasant. The OED defined it as cherishing, gracious, and generous. I found it very fascinating how some of these harsh, negative words can be formed and defined in such ways that expose the beauty of nature. In line 3 for example, the words "shadow" and "trembling" aren't always very pleasant, however the way that Smith uses it represents a beautiful image. She could have easily said something along the lines of the moon sparkled against the flow of the water. I feel that she has purposely used this tactic to write her poem to get a point across. The moral I got from this sonnet is that there is happiness behind all of the sadness; it just takes patience and time to uncover it.

Sonnet On Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep At A Tale Of Distress

In the first three lines of William Wordsworth's poem, there is a lot of imagery that is referenced to nature, a reference to water to be more specific. Miss Helen Williams "wept"; her tear drops are just like rain drops. When it rains, it is gloomy outside and people tend to be less happy, just like when people cry, they usually aren't very happy. Drops, whether they be rain drops or tear drops, provide the audience with a dark, murky image. Similarly, "swimming eyes" are ones that are full of tears. The reference to water is within the eyes - it is the tears themselves. Also, the word "swimming" provides an even deeper reference to water because where do we swim? In the water, of course. Tears swim in the eyes, just like rain drops swim in lakes, rivers, or other bodies of water. Wordsworth also mentions words like "tide," "flow," and "streams." It's pretty obvious how tides and streams relate to water, and "flow" does so as well since water flows through rivers and streams. The water flowing through a river is like blood flowing through the human body. The stronger your tears, the more emotional you are leading to a more rapid blood flow due to the anxiety within your body. Similarly, the stronger the rain, the worse the weather leading to a more turbulence on water causing a faster flow. The flow of blood in the human body is complex process as blood must be delivered to many different areas in the body. There is also more to a river than just a long narrow body of water - rivers have forks and separate, therefore rivers deliver water to different areas as well. As you can see, nature and humanity are connected in various ways; they have comparable habits and work in similar ways.
Rain and Tears Song